A MYSTERIOUS PHENOMENON.

There are many mysterious phenomena, with inexplicable reasons in human life.

You all may be familiar with nerve disease, Motor Neuron Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), which has no curative treatment discovered. It is a progressive disease and the progression can be retarded by physiotherapy. The maximum life span, with its progression, as per studies, is ten years, with physiotherapy treatment. A famous scientist called Stephan Hawkins, who was conscious throughout, stayed on a ventilator and was full in Mass media for his precious inventions, expired a few years ago with MND.

I have treated many MND cases in my Institute which is predominantly, a Neurosciences research institute under GOI. Many of them died in two to ten years and few are still on treatment. There are two ESMs also among them......A natural confusion may be generated in some people's minds, why do you treat a count..down the patient, who will never be cured. For many of those dying, one year bonus in longevity may enable him for the full support of his family for the coming years, even after his farewell to the universe.

I remember one MND patient, a forty-five years old SBI manager, who lived for ten years with physiotherapy after the onset of the disease. All the rest of my MND patients expired in below ten years. One peculiarity of this disease is that the patient will be conscious till the last breath. Even after the paralysis of the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles also, he will be conscious. This is the most pathetic scene! , a death in a state of full consciousness, knowing and suffering all terminal agonies. Death is inevitable for all, and the best form of death is death in an unconscious state.

S B I manager was brought to the neurologist in my hospital with mild writing difficulty. Simple investigation revealed it as MND and the neurologist advised physiotherapy with disposal of review every after three months. He had a son of 12yrs and a daughter of10 yrs., both studying in schools. His wife was an Asst. Manager in SBI. Two days after the husband was diagnosed with MND, she had a small fever and was detained in a private hospital for two days. Her fever was treated for viral fever initially but later diagnosed as viral encephalitis(brain fever). Sad to say, she expired after two days.

You may contemplate the melancholic scenario after that in the home. The manager could go to the bank and do his duty although he was deteriorating. I taught him fifty exercises, which he could do himself without my help and he was religious in doing that every day, without fail. After five years, he wanted my help and I attended him one hour for three days, and the rest of the days he did with the help of a bystander. When he was in the seventh year of NND, he was unable to walk and I applied walking aids and orthotics. With the help of these aids, he was continuing limited duties as his hands also were involved. He had good co-operation from his colleagues and authorities. When he was in the ninth year, he became bedridden and his activities of daily living were possible only with the help of his male attendant. His bank authorities were magnanimous to grant him a salary for six more months without leave. He expired when he completed ten years of MND. I considered it an achievement with special reference to his MND and his familial plight. Therefore I presented a scientific paper presentation on this, at our National conference, at TATA Institute, Bangalore.

You may ask, what could your physiotherapy do for him. By his gift of ten years of life span, with means of living, his son attained the age of 22 yrs. and daughter, 18yrs. , with an adequate education. Both of them became eligible for appointment in either bank of parents, on the ground of "Die in harness". The son got the appointment in the vacancy of mother and daughter of a father. Both are now married and have one child each and they consider me as a member of their family. You can now imagine, what probability of future, the children would have, if the father had not lived for ten years. This was possible by physiotherapy only, I can emphatically assert. I referred not only to the medical but also the sociological implications of MND in my presentation, at Tata Institute. This is the mysterious phenomenon, I brought to your notice at the beginning of the write-up. God has a plan for all predicaments for its solution. His ways are not our ways and that cannot be justified by tiny human beings like us.